Party Platform Change in Taiwan`s 1990s Elections

Abstract

The year 2001 marked the tenth anniversary of Taiwan s multiparty elections. The 1990 presidential election was the last contest under the old system. The National Assembly elections of 1991 and the forced retirement of the senior parliamentarians elected in mainland China marked the beginning of democratic elections that for the first time had the potential to bring about a change in ruling party. Ten years have passed, offering us a timely opportunity to take stock of the developments in Taiwan’s party politics.\nThis paper endeavors to tackle thefollowingfive questions: (1) What theoretical framework can be employed to test the developments of Taiwan’s politicalparties? (2) Do Taiwan’s parties emphasize issues in electoral campaigns? (3) If they do, which issues dominate the political agenda? (4) Do Taiwan parties d(ffer in the issues that they stress or “own”? (5) How has party issue emphasis changed over the 1990s?\nThe paper analyzes party change via a content analysis of newspaper advertisements for one month prior to each major election between 1991 and 2000. The coding scheme employed is a revised version of that developed by the Manifesto Research Group (MRG).\nThe results show that, generally speaking, although candidates are heavily stressed in elections, Taiwan s parties also pay considerable attention to issues. The data is supportive of issue ownership theory, as parties stress favorable issues and ignore or treat perfunctorily unfavorable issues. There has been a degree of movement and convergence on certain issues such as Taiwan independence. On core issues, however movement has only taken place within ideologically delimited areas, and leapfrogging on core dimensions has either not taken place or been a rare occurrence.